Would-be

…a “would-be” refers to a whole range, or general description, of possibilities which it asserts to be alike in a certain respect; so that two directly opposite assertions of would-be’s might both...

…no agglomeration of actual happenings can ever completely fill up the meaning of a “would-be.”

…though I am not perfectly sure of my ground (and I am a cautious reasoner), yet I am more that what you would understand by “pretty confident,” that supposing one to be in a condition to assert...

…by a Habit I shall mean a character of anything, say of B, this character consisting in the fact that under circumstances of a certain kind, say A, B would tend to be such as is...

Robin Catalogue:
A. MS., n.p., [c.1912?], pp. 1-6, with 2 other attempts to write p. 2.
The notion of “elegance” in mathematics. The secundal system. Modes of reality.